Toshiba A100-049 Laptop

[Mike.C]

Hi, I want to get another laptop and I am hoping that you guys can give me some advice.

First of all has anyone come across this Toshiba model before and based on the spec do you think it is worth £699?

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/ ... aShop=true

If this one is no good can you recommened another laptop from either Toshiba or any other manufacturer?

As well as surfing the net, I want a laptop that has enough power and space on the hard drive to allow me to download and edit digital camcorder films and photos. Am I right in thinking that you need a big hard drive to edit films?
Now and again I will also want to watch dvd's and play games.

In your opinion what should I look out for in a laptop, and what should it always have?

I understand that Microsoft is having some problems with Windows Vista. If this is the case, should I steer clear of it and get a laptop with Windows XP on, or get Vista and wait/hope that Microsoft take care of it with their updates/hotfixes/service packs?

I have got Windows XP Pro on my old laptop and so if I went with Vista and then got fed up of it, how easy would it be to load XP onto the new laptop?

Any advice would be great.

Cheers

Mike

 

[Matt_S]

It should always have an apple on top of it :wink:

For that price spend another £50 and get a macbook. They're not difficult to get the hang of if you hae only ever been a PC man. I see no reason for owning a PC unless you are a CAD technician.

- All the differences in how you use them are, once you know them, improvements which increase yor productivity.
- If you haven't seen the new ads with pc and mac watch them, they sum up perfectly the differences in terms of operating/crashing/viruses
- finally they are beautiful

I own two macs if you hadn't guessed!

 

[Smudger]

Totally agree - I own 3, 6 in the rest of the family, 2 more in the loft...

Obsessed? Nah, just a different slope.

 

[Mike.C]

Hi Matt, Smudger,

It took me a while to get my head around the pc let alone the apple, but I have heard that they are good, so if I was convinced of this I would give it a try. Is this the model that you are talking about?

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects ... pn/13.?p=0

If so and you look at it like for like (2gb ram, 120gb hard drive, modem)then at £1084 its a lot more expensive then the Toshiba.

Or were you talking about another model?

Cheers

Mike

 

[Smudger]

There are ways round the expense - for example, a smaller hard drive and an external archive drive, which is more secure anyway.

The point is - would you buy a new Stanley plane or a Lie Nielson? Especially if the LN was only 20% more?

I've had Toshibas and they were pants. Ditto Dell - the build quality on a Mac is way beyond anything you'll see on a PC and they last longer and give a lot more operative satisfaction - for example on the Macbook Pro range the cases are all metal. On the Macbooks the plastic is denser and heavier - which makes a huge difference in feel and confidence. The keyboards are way better, they are integrated machines rather than collections of bits nailed together somewhere, the operating system works and is elegant and intuitive...

I could go on, but I already have.

 

[DomValente]

I have two Dell laptops and have not had a problem, one of them gets chucked around the workshop.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/produ ... l=en&s=dhs

I believe you can tell them if you don't want Vista.

Dom

 

[RogerS]

Mike C - do you continue to want to wait forever while your laptop PC loads up its' anti-virus software, then its' firewall then its' anti-trojan stuff then ...I could go on.

Take a look at all the seamless integrated software that you get FOR FREE with your Apple Macbook

 

[Sailor]

Evening,
Don't get too carried away with the 'slowness' of PC's booting! I'm typing this on an Evesham notebook, it's nearly a year old and in that period the only time it has EVER had to start from 'cold' is when Windows Update has required a reboot. It is always left set up for hibernation, which means just touch the 'power' button, it shuts down; touch it again and it's back exactly where you were within 20 seconds or so.

I've now had 4 Evesham notebooks - all are still running, the oldest one is about 5 years old now and, they are at least, nominally British.
They do tend to 'buy-in' the chassis etc, but just about every manufacturer does that, including the fabled Apple. Plus, they have one of the best regarded warranties and reliabilities here in the UK - according to most of the Computer Press - far above Toshiba/Levono etc.
Also, they do a wide range, from basic to high-end gaming.
Finally! they also have retail shops where you can try them out if you want to.

HTH,

Colin

 

[gidon]

I bought 4 similiar spec machines for work and they are pretty good - for the price and from a reliable manufacturer I don't think you can go far wrong.
For serious video editing two hard drives are handy. The best option probably for laptop editing is to get an external USB or Firewire HDD - I just picked up a 400GB one from PC World for £80. Watching DVD's is more about the screen and sound - most hardware will cope just fine. Laptop graphic cards aren't great but are much better than they used to be and many will play older games pretty well.
Talking of Evesham machines the power supply on my 2 yr old desktop failed last week! But I've had pretty good experience with them otherwise.
Cheers
Gidon

 

[beejay]

I purchased a Toshiba laptop 4 years ago and its done everything I asked of it without problem.
Everyone seems to want to push apple down your throat but if you don't want one then don't feel obliged to buy one.
Horses for courses,,, as they say.
beejay

 

[Mike.C]

Thanks guys, I think my best bet is to go and take a look at an apple.

Gidon your right, after looking at the external hard drives on the PC World web site they certainly look good value for money and as Smudger says they are more secure.

The trouble is there are so many different laptops on the market its hard to know which one to go for, and if like me you are not all that clued up on them, it makes matters even worse.
Then to confuse me even more, after being told by some guy on the phone the other day that I must go for the latest all singing, all dancing Intel Duel Core 2, I have just found out that there are not one, but several different models, each being more powerful then the other. God my brain hurts ](*,)

Cheers

Mike

 

[Guy]

I have an A100 which is a month old, came with XP. others in the office got the same but with Vista and have had heaps of problems with Office, printing and Lotus notes. With WP no problems at all

 

[Anonymous]

If this one is no good can you recommend another laptop from either Toshiba or any other manufacturer?

Mike

I currently have 5 laptops (tools of the trade) and find the Toshiba M400 is the best I have ever come across (been using laptops professionally for about 12 years)

the thing about the M400 is that it works as tablet PC or laptop - fantastic. Toshiba sent me a free Windows Vista Business DVD too, so i have two hard disks for it, one Win XP pro and one Vista Business (using that now) and it is superb with either

 

[Mike.C]

Tony,

Mike

I currently have 5 laptops (tools of the trade) and find the Toshiba M400 is the best I have ever come across (been using laptops professionally for about 12 years)

the thing about the M400 is that it works as tablet PC or laptop - fantastic. Toshiba sent me a free Windows Vista Business DVD too, so i have two hard disks for it, one Win XP pro and one Vista Business (using that now) and it is superb with either

As I spend more then enough time at the hospital and my GP's at the moment, my first thoughts were I don't need any more tablets :roll:
But then when I read the M400's spec, my thoughts went to straight to a James Bond movie, "Finger Print Reader" :shock: it's like something 007 would have. There's one thing for sure, no one's going to get into your computer.
If I am really honest though, yes the finger print scanner is a brilliant security idea, but what I really like is the way you have spilt the hard drive to run both Vista and XP, the best of both worlds.
I would love one Tony, but sadly at the moment it's a bit out of my price range, the never never card just would not accept it. Thanks for showing me how the other half live though :-({|= :wink:

Now with my feet firmly back on the ground, I better go and surf around for a cheapo

Cheers

Mike

 

[andycktm]

Hi Mike,
If i were looking for a lap top right now the only thing i would look for is 17in(if poss) screen.
laptops over £500 will handle anything including video editing.Gone are the day's where you have to worry
about processer power the hardware has left the software behind.Video is all mpeg no more 500mb a minute avi's.
I use womble mpeg video wizard, editor no probs even on an old xp2000 machine(athlon) that is.If you make sure
its got 120g hard drive the rest of the (top) spec should match.Vista? if you've got old programs you need to run
get xp if you want the latest os get vista, personally i wouldn't hesitate.i've just had to help someone setup a
dell inspiron (internet) 9400 17" screen + vista i had it for a few day's great laptop.
I've got an offer here for a tosh.a100 with 512ram 60gb hd £475-00, pcworld has one in gb ram 100gb hd £599,
so the tosh. you listed looks in the ballpark.

 

[MrJay]

I bought an A100 yesterday. I havn't finished taming it yet, but the overall impression is pretty positive (except for Vista, which is truly awful - dual/triple booting with XP or Linux isn't straight forward and is going to take a little while to sort out.)

You might want to seek out the refurbished section of the UK Apple Store website and see what they've got. I was almost tempted, but after haggling the price of the Toshiba down in the shop a similarly equipped Mac was still about half as much money again; though Macs don't come with Vista installed, which counts in their favor.

Laptops with 17" screens are obviously less portable and more power hungry, so it's swings and roundabouts. Wide-screen is a bit of a con though; it's like a normal screen, only less.

-edit-
By way of an update in case it's of interest...

My original plan was to tripple (quadruple?) boot on the laptop between XP, Vista and Ubuntu (+ experiment with 64bit Linux also)

Toshiba doesn't supply a proper copy of Vista with the laptop, preferring one of those nasty Restore CDs which obliterates the entire hard drive and restores it to factory conditions (bad news if Vista ever needs reinstalling, as it will kill Ubuntu and all my Windows/Linux files in the process)

My XP install disk is old and aborts before getting very far as it's not compatible with all the funky new hardware. I've read that more recent install CDs don't have that problem. Though I'd rather have a Windows alternative to Vista, I don't care enough to lose sleep over it.

Dual booting Vista and Ubuntu was easy (de-frag Vista, then let Ubuntu resize Vista) which means I've now got Ubuntu for grown up stuff and Vista for pratting about on; which means I'm happy.

 

[Mike.C]

Hi MrJay,

Thank you for the info. Is it the 049 that you have because there are a few A100 models?

How do you find it, now that you have had it for a few more days?

I haven't been able to go out and look at any laptops yet, so if there is anymore advice anyone can give me I would appreciate it.

Cheers

Mike

 

[MrJay]

Mine is a slightly posher posher model (451), but it's much of a muchness. It's always worth shopping about a bit and haggling, I got the 451 for the same money Toshiba are advertising the 049 at.

Vista is an unmitigated disaster. Unless you've the inclination to install XP or *nix there's no point buying a Windows PC in the near future. My XP install disk bails out before it gets started claiming to not want to damage my shiny new machine.

Keyboard is nice, slightly squashed, but nice. It's well laid out and certainly better than most Laptops.

Screen is crisp, but a bit fussy about viewing angles. It's got a glossy coating that is aesthetically pleasing but might not be best suited if you need bullet proof colour accuracy, Wide screen simply cheats you out of some vertical screen real estate.

Battery will give you 2 - 3 hours of life. It's amazing how quickly 2 - 3 hours goes. If you're going to use it away from a plug a lot you'll want a spare battery (not included). Also not included is a bag or sleeve to keep it safe, or a mouse.

All told I'm a happy bunny, (but then, I use Ubuntu for everything other than zapping aliens with my collection of ray guns) excepting Vista, it's an extremely smart piece of kit in an understated/quietly superior sort of way.

 

[CABBY]

Daughters Toshiba lappy she got for x mas has just been sent back, blank screen on start up :?: Satellite model, not sure about model number.